Incidental Fate Book 1

49

"Morning Sadie! Happy Saturday!" Debbie was waving, greeting me way too cheerfully.

Happy Saturday, ha. More like drunk myself to sleep waiting for a call I never got or made, and now feel like crap Saturday. "Hi Debbie," I smiled back. "You're working the day shift today?"

"Yep! Two weekends in a row, can't beat that. I actually get to go out on a Saturday night!"

"Fun! How's the floor looking this morning?"

"Pretty slow actually."

A slow day in the ER was a good day. I grabbed my charts, feeling the floor rumble underneath me as a gurney rolled by. But the rumble didn't stop, it was growing stronger, churning my stomach,the floor rolling under me. "Debbie?" I looked up, then to the wall behind her, watching the signs rattling.

"Get under the desk Sadie!" Debbie yelled, racing around the corner and ducking under the station.

But my legs buckled. The floor, the walls, the lights above all clattering and rolling with the earth. Holy shit, an earthquake!

Grant! Gavin! For a moment I forgot that Gavin was gone, at least I knew he was safe. But Grant, was he still sleeping? Was he okay?

"Sadie!"

I heard my name again, but I was still frozen over the rumbling floor beneath me. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I looked over to where Debbie disappeared to, watching everything on the counter rattle off the sides, falling to meet the waterfall of paperwork and supplies that were clattering off the shelves.

I felt sick, a slow nausea building from the rolling earth.

Panic started sounding off from every which way now as the monotone announcer repeated the disaster code over and over again through the speakers.

"Sadie!"

This time it was Kirk's voice roaring as he pushed his equipment past me, grabbing my arm to follow him and subsequently causing me to lose my balance and fall face first to the floor, sending my purse and arms flying.

And in that same instant he stumbled, tripping his anesthesia machine, making it fall over and I turned my head at the noise right as the giant machine broke its fall on my arm.

The earth was still now, though the chaos was deafening. I was pinned down to the floor, hearing shouts around me as they attempted to lift the machine off my arm.

I lifted my face up slightly, eying the debris and mess that now covered the previously clean floor. So this was an earthquake.

When I had told my parents we were moving to California they warned me about these and I had laughed. There hadn't been a big earthquake in a while and I assumed all the talk of the 'next one' was just media hype. Now, here I was, pinned to the floor, surrounded by an aftermath of chaos.

"Ow!" A crippling pain shot up my arm just as Kirk shouted over me.

"Don't move Sadie! Help is on the way."

I lied there for who knows how long before a man's voice I didn't recognize leaned into my ear. "Sadie, this is Joe, I'm going to help you up, but first we're going to splint and stabilize your arm."

I hadn't even felt them lift the machine off of me, which obviously wasn't a good sign.

Debbie then bent down to my side, leaning towards my face on the floor. "Sadie, it's Grant calling, your phone won't stop ringing! Do you want me to answer it?"

"Yes! Is he okay?" At least I was already at the hospital, what if he was injured and was stuck somewhere. I tried to drown out the noise around us and focus on Debbie's voice next to me.

"Are you okay?"
"This is Debbie, from the hospital. Your mom wants to know if you're okay."
"Oh, good. Then I'll have her call you later."

He was okay, thank god. Then I heard my phone immediately ringing again and she answered it, sighing to herself first. "Grant again."

"Is everything still okay?"
"She, she can't talk right now. She's had an accident, but we have the finest doctors in San Diego."
"I'll have her call you as soon as we get her stable. You can call the back line this afternoon to check on her."

Ugh, she made it sound so much worse than it was, or was it that bad?

"That was odd," Debbie mumbled beside me. "Sadie, I'm going to put your purse and phone in the back. I'll bring it to you after you're all fixed up."

She scurried away and suddenly there were hands sliding under me. "Sadie, we're going to slowly roll you over, then lift you onto the gurney," Joe instructed and I felt more hands on me, rolling and hoisting me up all in one swift movement. "How are you feeling?"

I looked around at all the worried eyes on me. "I'm fine, but I can't feel my arm."

"We're going to have you looked at right away!" Joe reassured me.

I hated this feeling. The patients needed our team and here I was using so many of our resources and because of a silly, unnecessary accident.

Debbie rushed over to my side as Joe started rolling the gurney away. "Don't worry," she sighed. "Emergency backup is on their way in."

"I'll try to get back quickly!"

She gave me a weak smile, her gaze rolling down to my arm. "Just focus on you Sadie. I've got this handled."

"And Grant was okay right?" I called back as they pushed me further away.

"Yeah, although when he called back he was a tad aggressive. He went from calling you mom to Sadie and using some very choice words," she yelled back playfully before disappearing into the chaos.

Sadie? Grant had never called me by my name and he never cussed, not the way... Gavin. Shit. Of course. He was just 'G' in my contacts. She saw Grant and then G and assumed it was the same. Shit, I needed to call him, but it was too late. I was already being wheeled into radiology. I only hoped he wasn't overreacting.